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Aggro
Managing aggro is one of the most important aspects of grouping because so much depends on how much damage the group receives and where the damage ends up. For a long time it was thought that we as players would never be able get a sound understanding of how aggro works because it was assumed that it is based on complicated AI algorithms which can't reasonably be deduced from the little information Blizzard has made available to us. Thanks to the work of some dedicated individuals, however, we now know that this is not the case. Today we have a quite thorough theory on aggro which explains most of the factors involved in a mob's target selection. These ideas and findings are outlined in this article. Theory Threat Several abilities and effects increase a character's threat level against a mob. Note that the effective amount of threat generated can be modified by talents and spells. See the Threat modifiers subsection for details. Threat modifiers per Class The actual threat generated by the effects above can be modified by the following abilities, talents and spells: * 1The figures for these maneuvers do not include Threat generated by their damage. * 2Priest - Fade is a temporary buff. When it expires, its threat level reduction is revoked once an aggro generating action is performed. * 3Rogue agro reduction was buffed from 20% to 29% in patch 1.12. Druids in Cat Form were given the same bonus. Warriors in Battle and Berserker Stance are still only looking at a 20% agro reduction. Threat Modifying Items Stacked threat modifiers All threat reduction effects stack in a multiplicative fashion, for example: You are a warrior in Berserker Stance (-20% threat generated) and are effected by Blessing of Salvation (-30% threat generated) Your total threat reduction would be: Berserker Stance (0.8 threat generated per point of damage)*Blessing of Salvation (0.7 threat generated per point of damage). 0.8*0.7=0.56 or 56% of threat generated - a total of 44% threat reduction. Bonuses to threat generation applies in the same way as reductions since patch 1.12, with the exception of the innate "Defensive" threat of defensive stance and bear form and the talents for those stances, defiance and feral instinct, which add together for a 45% total bonus. Known bugs Threat reduction abilities are also affected by threat reducing effects. Example: Rogues have -29 % threat as an inate ability which is always active. Feint reduces threat by -800. However. the -29% affects feint, which causes it to remove only 568 threat, instead of the avertised ammount. Additional notes * Pulling (being the first who a mob attacks) does not generate any threat in itself, but other players need to beat your threat by 10% to get aggro from the mob. * Overhealing doesn't generate any threat, only actual health restored. * Threat doesn't decay (passively degenerate over time). * A character's threat level is reset if the character dies or moves away from the mob. * A character's threat level cannot be negative. * The hunter's Feign Death and the rogue's Vanish resets the player's threat level on all mobs which don't resist it. Aggro By aggro we understand the condition of a particular mob attacking a particular character. The basic behaviour of aggro is controlled by the rules outlined below. Obviously, some mobs will have secondary attacks which have different targeting procedures. Pulling The following conditions will cause a mob to attack a character if it isn't already attacking someone else: # Using certain abilities on the mob (including attacking it), or # Moving inside the aggro radius of the mob Drawing Aggro The following conditions will cause a mob to attack a character if it is already attacking someone else: # Taunting the mob, or # Exceeding the threat level of the mob's current target by 10% within melee range of the mob, or # Exceeding the threat level of the mob's current target by 30% outside melee range of the mob, or # The player with aggro leaves the leash range of the mob, leaves the instance, successfully uses an ability to leave combat (such as feign death), or dies, or # If certain abilities impair the access of the mob to its higher threat-ranked targets (e.g. root spells), the mob will attack the highest threat-ranked target in its ability range (usually visible for melee mobs or silenced casters, which have a combat range of 5 yards) # If certain abilities apply a debuff to a character that cause the mob to consider the player an invalid target. Usually these debuffs have a chance (or certainty) to break on damage, but there are some that don't but still cause the mob to consider the character an invalid target. Examples include Polymorph, Gouge, Fear, Conflagration, etc. These aggro reduction effects are temporary in most situations (exceptions exist). When the ability wears off, previous aggro levels are restored after a player performs any aggro-generating move. Building Aggro Activity commonly performed by tanks. This is where other classes hold back DPS and overhealing until the tank has a certain margin in Threat build upon one or more Mobs. Frequently a tank would perform this by: * Taunting the target (to set his threat to the same as the person currenly holding Aggro) * Activate Bloodrage * Spam Sunder Armor / Heroic Strike / etc Taunting The following skills are taunting abilities: * A Warrior's Taunt * A Warrior's Mocking Blow * A Warrior's Challenging Shout * A Druid's Bear-Form Growl (same as Taunt) * A Druid's Bear-Form Challenging Roar (same as Challenging Shout) * A Paladin's Righteous Defense (in 2.0.1) Note, the Growl of a Hunter's pet and Torment ability of a Warlock's Voidwalker are not actual taunting abilities; they merely cause a substantial amount of Threat. When a mob is Taunted through the use of one of these taunting abilities, two things happen: # A short-lived debuff is applied to the mob, which forces it to attack the character who used the taunting ability on it; and # The Threat level of the character who used the taunting ability is immediately raised to be equal to the Threat level of whoever currently has aggro, if the taunting character's Threat is lower. (Note: This only counts for Taunt & Growl. Mocking Blow, Challenging Shout and Challenging Roar force mobs to attack you, but do not receive this second effect. Mocking Blow generates a pre-defined amount of threat, Challenging Shout/Roar do not generate any threat at all!) Taunting has some strange behavior in that if the tank pulled, the mob will stay on the tank after the taunt debuff has worn off, even if the tank has not made up the 10% difference in aggro between the tank and whoever pulled aggro. If another party member pulls (and does not wipe their aggro) then if they later pull aggro from the tank, if the tank taunts he must do 10% threat before the debuff wears off or he will lose aggro again. Further complications Healing a tank who holds multiple mobs When a tank hold multiple mobs, the threat of a heal on the tank will be split between all the mobs. The exact formula is not yet known, but it is more than the Threat/number of mobs. So if a tank holds 5 mobs and receives a heal, the threat on each mob will be less than Threat(heal)/5. Current speculation is Threat(heal)/(num of mobs *2) The implication here is simple: in a 5-man party or 10-man raid, let the tank charge in. The tank then must throw Demoralizing Shout (to get some threat on all mobs) and then start sundering/revenging/whatever. Otherwise, with 0 threat on some mobs, the first heal will cause those mobs to attack the healer. Implications * Let the tank pull, or be the first to gain aggro after a Hunter has pulled and feigned death. This way, his taunts will always return aggro to him. * Two or more tanks taunting targets from each other (and generating threat in various ways between the cooldowns) are great for generating immense amounts of hate very fast - since they always have each other as "top reference" in the hate list. * Because characters standing out of melee range will not draw aggro until they exceed the threat level of the mob's current target by 30%, it's important that the tank keep the mobs well away from the casters. If a caster does draw aggro and you taunt it off him, make sure you also move it away. New Data in The Burning Crusade Beta This part is tested by players of EU. Note, it is data on beta servers, so, the final number might be changed in released version. The Threat values listed in the above table do not include the Threat caused by damage from the maneuver. References: http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=92309409&sid=1 References * Kenco . ''Some Threat Values and Formulas''. Category:Formulas and Game Mechanics